Event Management is theoretically the application of project management to create and deliver an event. In reality, it is an individual journey for many different stakeholders to create or participate in an event which creates impact and is memorable to all.
All events evolve their business models constantly, have multiple stakeholders, numerous complex revenue streams and time sensitive cost budgets and cash flow challenges. This kind of an environment can make roles and responsibilities difficult to identify and success is dependent on effective communication and integration across all stakeholders.
Simoptima has worked across the world on some of the biggest and most iconic events and has a proven methodology which, when customised adds significant value throughout the journey to specific or multiple stakeholders. The current trend is to work within aggressive lifecycles, regardless of the size of the event, and we have the experience and adaptability to ensure that our methodology can add value by prompting the right questions and the right time and capturing them in a way that all stakeholders can move forward cohesively.
Regardless of the lifecycle timing or the allocated budget, we know that every event needs to plan, or at least make assumptions in defined phases. These are best summarised as follows:
Initiation
Prior to launching a bid, all stakeholders need to assess why, where and how they should take part in a bid for a major sport event. SimOptima can provide a framework for individual stakeholders or the wider group to consider the requirements, the advantages and the challenges in preparing a bid and also what the consequences of winning the bid will be.
Bidding
Once a bid has been initiated, the process will develop the framework to identify how to bid and more importantly how to win! SimOptima has the experience and the understanding to assist in the designing a comprehensive bid submission which will need to define the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, draw up a legal framework and identify the required guarantees and funding mechanism.
Ultimately a bid submission must meet the specifications and answer the direct questions of the event owner, thus it is important to ensure that the bidder can isolate the benefits in hosting the event, inspire local support, both from politicians and the public, and where possible, ensure that their own legacy objectives are met or accelerated.
Transition
Having won the bid, the Bid Team needs to move from a vision to a reality – hence the title ‘transition’. This critical foundation period is where many event organisers struggle. How do you set up a business to run an event from start to finish? Time spent doing the work in this phase is a long term investment and critical to establishing a viable and sustainable business model which takes you all the way through closure.
SimOptima has the knowledge, the experience and the understanding to guide stakeholders through this process. Our methodology will enable you to understand the tasks, explore the options and ultimately design a customised business model. SimOptima will ensure transition prompts direct discussions to identify the best model for all and create a consistent vision of the event for all stakeholders.
Most importantly, a well crafted transition phase will ensure that all stakeholders can save time, resources and budget by making the right decisions at the right time and establishing a coherent planning structure.
Planning
The planning phase in an event is complex and multi-dimensional. The SimOptima pathway will ensure all stakeholders identify and organise the major functional areas in a logical way and also understand the planning phases which are needed to ensure that interdependencies are considered in planning which will ultimately guarantee a successful delivery phase.
Ultimately event operations serve different client groups and therefore at all times during planning the client end to end process and experience needs to be considered. The key question is does the plan meet the client’s requirements and expectations and is it fit for purpose and sustainable over the entire event period?
During the planning phase, the resource count of the different delivery partners needs to ensure that the right people are employed or dedicated to the project at the right time. Human resources are expensive and therefore the SimOptima approach will ensure that the delivery partners’ growth is defined by the output of the planning phase.
The objective should be experienced senior staff build out the business model and define standard operations, policies and procedures and that these principles guide the replication process across all sites and functional areas.
Traditional Operation Readiness deliveries happen late in the planning phase of an event; in the final stretch before Operations begin. As you can see from our previous steps, SimOptima believes it has a place in all phases, not just planning. However, the planning process provides a structured framework for achieving objectives and managing resources. We help you ask the right questions and gather the necessary information. We then guide you in how you use this information to develop your plans and finally how to implement it so it is ready for your operations.
Delivery
Transforming a plan into reality is a task in one site but for the multiple sites and clients of an event the challenge cannot be underestimated.
An event operation has to be right from day one and this emphasizes the reliance on integrated planning and operational readiness testing throughout the process. SimOptima has the tools to ensure that an event operator can create an effective operational structure to support all levels of workforce and has the content and methodology to motivate and train staff at all levels to ensure they are ambassadors on the ground.
The foundation will, no doubt, need to be adapted in an ever changing event environment, and a well prepared workforce will be able to show this flexibility if they feel armed with the necessary knowledge and are part of a strong team from the outset.
SimOptima also has proven experience in defining and operating Command & Control (C4) centres to ensure the event operators on the ground are supported in real time and that issue tracking is effective and focused.
Closure
Once the event is finished, the closure of the event is often underestimated by all parties. Running an event at full speed for an operational period will mean that fatigue will set in. Once the event is over it is difficult to motivate a workforce who also need to shift focus to what comes after this event; where will I work?
SimOptima understands the criticality of the closure period both in terms of operational and administrative tasks. Our methodology will ensure that no event operator underestimates the challenge of a successful closure and retains the right workforce for the right period of time to ensure that closure is completed effectively and that lessons learned are captured and documented for future reference/implementation in any future event cycles
Such a simple statement but so difficult to manage.
Sporting events are evolving their business models constantly, have multiple stakeholders and ever increasing budgets from different sources. This kind of an environment is challenging with responsibilities difficult to identify and integration and communication pivotal to the success of the event.
Key competences of our team
- Organisational Governance, Structure & Evolution
- Programme & Portfolio Management
- Budget Definition, evolution and management
- Risk and Risk Mitigation
- Event Bidding
- Event Planning and Integration
- Operationalisation
- Sites and Venues
- Host Cities Planning and Operations
- Event Mobility
- Accommodation
- Arrivals & Departures
- Workforce
- Recruitment & retention
- Command and Control including Programme monitoring and Operational Support
SimOptima 